by Linda Seals
Raked Over
by
Linda Seals
Copyright © 2013 Linda Seals
All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any form than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author.
Cover art by Barb Schmidt
For the Toots,
life traveler and fellow storyteller, who is a true joy in my life
CHAPTER ONE
You could call me a gregarious loner.
You could call me that weird woman who lives by herself in a freight depot on the edge of town. Guess it depends on your perspective. I need space around me—room for solitude—and the old brick train building and yards were like my castle and moat, although not all that grand. That afternoon I was welcoming friend Betty Huckleston to my humble realm; she was the best exception to my need to be alone. Even though our personalities couldn’t be more different—I dubbed us the Tortoise and the Hare—we made each other laugh. Solitude was good, but laughter was better, and I looked forward to her visits like a kid does a new Xbox.
In honor of her visit, I was tending a quickie version of our craving for barbeque with a pork loin on an ancient backyard smoker. The sweet smell of the smoke rose up through the trees and late afternoon shafts of sunlight into a blue Colorado sky. Patsy Cline, my black and tan healer mix, trotted around the corner of the converted depot, her nose in the fragrant air, just as I closed the lid on the smoke-blackened fire box. I knew she wanted to rip our dinner right off the grates the minute my back was turned. Not gonna happen this time, I thought, as I bungeed the top to the sides. Patsy grinned at me.
I heard a car turning into the gravel drive in front of the house, so I trotted up the back steps, through the house, and down the front steps to greet Betty Huckleston. She unfolded her long legs out of the small car, reached out to give me a hug, and we both said at the same time, “Hiya, Toots!” I grabbed a few of her bags out of the back seat, and started inside.
“Guess what I’m making—oh, god, the pork!” I dropped the bags, and charged around the corner of the house to the back, already yelling at the dog, who was inches from knocking the smoker over with our long-awaited dinner inside. She scampered off, tail between her legs as if in submission, but I knew the act was a sham.
“Hey, Lily,” called Betty from the old freight platform that was now my back porch. “Should I put my stuff in the usual room?”
“Yeah, but I’m coming in. Patsy didn’t get into anything, but I’ve had to watch her all day!” I started to complain more about the antics of the dog, but I realized that Betty’s voice had sounded different. When I looked up at my friend, she seemed troubled. “What’s up?” I asked.
Tears welled up in Betty’s eyes. “I’m sorry—it’s … ”
“Is Hannah okay?” I asked. Betty had stopped in Greeley to see her daughter on her way up to see me.
“Yes, Hannah’s fine. But … a friend of hers died two nights ago. They think it was suicide. And— ” Betty said, and then stopped again.
“What?”
“Lily, I’m sorry; you know the poor girl who died. It was Shannon Parkhurst.”
“Shannon? Oh, gosh—wow—” I said, not knowing what to say.
Shannon Parkhurst had worked for me one summer on my landscaping crew, and she had been one of my most eager students of horticulture. I remembered how hard she had worked. “How did she die? Did you already tell me that?” I asked.
“Hannah told me the police are saying it was suicide,” Betty replied.
As my mouth gaped open at the news, the phone rang inside. We both went in; it was Richard, Betty’s husband. Betty motioned that she wanted to talk with him and then grabbed a can of peanuts off the counter, stuffed a handful in her mouth, and wandered onto the back porch, talking in low tones.
I was trying to get what Betty had just told me to sink in. My working relationship with Shannon Parkhurst at first had been as boss and crew member, but as I got to know her I felt we had a special affinity for each other since we had walked similar paths as recovering alcoholics. She told me her story one rare rainy afternoon as we sat in the shop cleaning tools, and I saw by her behavior on my crew that she had worked hard to get her life back together.
That slight but tough, hard-working girl had killed herself? I wondered, and sadness grabbed at me. Shannon and I had spent a lot of time together that summer, and she had been engaging and quick to learn, funny in a quiet way, and honest with herself and others. She had talent in horticulture, but it was apparent that her true gift was with people, and seemed naturally good at it—even with her natural shyness—volunteering at the community garden’s youth program when she worked for me that summer.
Shannon Parkhurst always had a special place in my heart, but I lost track of her after that summer just the same. I heard later that Shannon and Betty’s daughter Hannah were, by chance, roommates at school in New Mexico, and I had smiled at the coincidence. I’d had a few bits and pieces of news about her over the years from Betty’s chats with Hannah, but that was all.
I turned to the sink and looked out the large window into the backyard, my mind racing with distractions. Outside, I could see Patsy Cline sniffing around the smoker under the apricot tree. As I washed up the barbeque utensils, the kitchen was full of light from the bank of small-paned windows high up on the west wall, letting in the golden late-afternoon sun that had brightened the depot for the decades it had been in service in our small university town. The light gave a sense of peace to the room that I needed just then.
Betty returned from her phone call and my natural curiosity started in.
“How long had Hannah known Shannon?” I asked. “I’d lost track of her. What else did Hannah say? What else did she know about what happened?”
“Not much,” Betty replied as she walked over to the refrigerator. “Can I get you anything? Ice tea?”
I nodded, and she continued, “Hannah was in shock about her friend; talked to me all morning about her. She knew Shannon from the time they were roommates at New Mexico State in Las Cruces, and both worked at an immigrant project there a couple of years ago. It was somewhere down west of Hatch; it was a small community of just poor houses, really. I can’t remember the name in Spanish. Anyway, Hannah hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, until they both turned up at the same party in Frederick two weeks ago. Hannah said Shannon looked surprised and then relieved to see her.”
“Relieved? Did Hannah know what that was about?”
“Not really.” Betty frowned. “Hannah said it was really loud; you know how those parties are—the kind mothers would really rather not know their children are attending until after they’re home safe. Anyway, it was hard to hear much or clearly, but Hannah said Shannon wanted to meet up later, and that she would call her.”
“Did she?” I wondered.
“Nope. Although she did expect her to call, Hannah wrote it off to Shannon spacing it out, or losing her phone, something like that. She said she was pretty out of it at the party, stumbling around. Hannah said Shannon seemed confused, kept saying she didn’t know what was going on.”
“What? Shannon was drinking?” I asked, taken aback by the information.
“Hannah said she was really surprised at her condition, too. Seems that when she knew Shannon in New Mexico, Shannon didn’t drink at all. Hannah was going to ask her about what was going on when they got together again. She was concerned about her.” Betty started unloading the usual bounty of vegetables she’d brought from the farmers’ markets in southern Colorado. And, as usual, she pulled out cakes and chocolate, sausages, cheese, pretzels, pastries, and more.
I smiled and said, “Toots, you said you weren’t going to bring anything!”
“Yeah, te
ll me you don’t want any of this chocolate cake.”
“Yep, you got me there… So, anyway, what happened after Shannon got Hannah’s number?”
“Shannon’s boyfriend came up. Hannah said he seemed very nice and solicitous towards Shannon, apologizing for her condition, saying she’d partied too much. He helped Shannon inside to lie down. That was the last time Hannah saw Shannon.”
“Did Hannah tell all this to the police?”
“No, Hannah didn’t talk to the police. It was a friend who called her about Shannon’s death, not the police. I guess the police talked to the boyfriend, mostly.”
We both sat in thought for a moment. I didn’t want to believe that Shannon Parkhurst had fallen so hard out of sobriety; she’d seemed like such a fighter. I didn’t care what others did with alcohol—it just didn’t work for me. My drinking life had been small and sad, and now, sober, my life was large and abundant. I’d had years of that abundance and joy of life, and I’d sensed that same freedom in Shannon’s story of her own sobriety. Now it sounded like she had given it all away.
Betty Huckleston refilled our glasses and set them down on the island top amid all the food sprawl. She shook out another handful of peanuts, and said, “Whew, now I’ve got to change into shorts. I’m hot!” She went off to her room as the other phone rang in my office at the far end of the building.
I trotted down the hall to the light and open quarter of the building that was for my business, Vines, a garden design and maintenance service. This southern part included an attached tin-roofed open shed that I used for all manner of things and the dogs used for shade on hot afternoons. Patsy was probably over there now, keeping her eye on the smoker.
On the far side of the graveled work yard was my shop, which was big enough to house my small SUV, a trailer, and all my tools. I tried reached the phone in the office before it went to voice mail, but the machine was too quick. It was Liz, my crew chief, checking in. I didn’t feel like talking at the moment, and although I knew that Liz, who had worked with Shannon, too, would want to know the news I decided to wait to call her back.
I hurried back to the kitchen only to find Betty Huckleston out in the yard with Patsy Cline, the two of them sitting together under the apple tree like ladies at a church social, Betty puffing away on a Pall Mall. All she needed was a parasol; she had always moved at her own pace and could not be rushed. Betty Huckleston could appear like the Church Lady sort now, but when we had met in college over a keg of beer, our friendship had sparked at our inebriated crooning with Steve Miller: “I'm a grinner/I'm a lover/And I'm a sinner … I’m a joker/I’m a smoker…” Since then, we had outgrown some of that, but had remained best of friends.
The heat outside was making it necessary to consume large quantities of drink, so I refilled my ice tea, grabbed a beer for her, and headed outside, ready to slow down to her tempo. She looked up when I came down the steps, a smile on her face. She looked much less stressed than when she had first arrived. I knew it had helped her to talk with her husband Richard about their daughter.
“I love it out here,” she said grinning behind her large-framed glasses. The breeze from the river cooled its way through the streamside willows and cottonwoods to us in the backyard. I could just hear the pigeons cooing from the crenellated roofs of the Northern Feed and Grain across the street.
”What did you hear from Richard?” I asked.
“Oh, he called to see if I’d made it without trouble. He was worried about the radiator, but I told him everything with the car was fine.” She paused. “I let him know about Hannah and her friend Shannon. He’s gonna call Hannah, you know, make sure she’s okay. Well, you know we’d been waiting to hear from Hannah and Joe—they’re going to pull a trailer full of their furniture to New Mexico. That was part of the reason I stopped there this morning.”
She looked down and sighed. “Las Cruces is so far! I was hoping they could be in northern New Mexico.” Her daughter and husband were relocating 800 miles south for a job opening in a small school district.
I thought about Shannon Parkhurst’s time at school in New Mexico. Had she changed so much there? Had life beaten her down so that only alcohol seemed like it had the answer out of the pain? Whatever answers alcohol promises, in the end, it delivers death. Early death from disease, death from accidents, death in jail, death any way you didn’t want it. Or death gift wrapped as suicide. Was that the path Shannon chose?
Betty Huckleston was in her own thoughts. She shook her head and then got up to wander over to the steps, where she plopped down next to Patsy, giving the dog’s head a scratch, causing Patsy to thump her tail on the heavy wooden planks in appreciation. Maybe it was time to put the sad issues aside for a while and eat some barbeque, I suggested.
The pork was ready and I maneuvered it onto a tray, Patsy Cline watching every move. Betty opened the screen door so I could get in easily and not drop the whole thing, to the dog’s delight. I plopped it down on the mottled concrete counter, got out the foil, made a tent from a piece, and set the tray aside.
“I know you love that dog,” Betty said, eyeing Patsy who was eyeing the pork. “But she sure is a handful.”
“I know; she’s way too smart for me.” I had rescued her and her brother, Pecos Bill, in New Mexico, and they had lived with me on a five-acre place in the desert south of Santa Fe. When I returned to Colorado and city life, I knew they’d be better off in the country since they were used to a bigger area to roam than my train yard in town could provide.
So they had gone to live with my ex-partner Carol Griffin, and her partner Marjo Catanya, out at their ranch north of town. Carol and I were on good terms still; it had, in the end, been an amicable split. She’d been with Marjo for years now, and the three of us all got along. I loved and missed the dogs, so I readily agreed to keep them when Carol and Marjo needed help, and this weekend they had taken Pecos up into the mountains with Carol’s grandkids and left Patsy with me in town. Other times I’d just go get them for some company.
I fed Patsy an organic marrow bone, which she grabbed from the side of her mouth like a gangster cigar, trotted out the back door, and plopped down in the yard under the big cottonwoods to chew on her prize. That left the pork barbeque for Betty and me to dig into. I lifted up the foil on the loin, and the exterior was bronzed with spice rub and smoke.
“My god, that smells good!” Betty said as she pulled a long slicing knife from the knife block on the old butcher-block center island, and handed it to me. She plopped down at her usual place on a well-worn wooden stool, and said, “Pinto beans are on the back burner, and the coleslaw’s in the refrigerator … I brought some soft rolls for the pork. How’d you make it this time?”
“It’s smoked in hickory and apple, after marinating over night. The spice mix kind of starts out as a rub and ends up a marinade. You know how it is—you start adding in one thing after another. It’s never the same each time, but I think this one will be one of the best I’ve made. Just for you, Toots!” I started to slice the meat to pile on our plates, which we carried outside on the porch. Soon our sampling frenzy began.
After trying every combo of pork, coleslaw, bean, and bun we could think of, Betty Huckleston and I sat back in our chairs, dazed by the food we’d just consumed. “Mighty good, Toots,” Betty purred. “Couldn’t eat another bite. The leftovers are gonna be dy-no-mite for sandwiches tomorrow! But how I can even think of that, I don’t know. I’m way more than stuffed!”
“Well, I’m going to take the plates and stuff inside before Patsy gets a whiff of what’s on this table. Then we can relax,” I said as I gathered up dishes. Betty got up and pushed the door open wider for me, and then looked inside.
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh, what?” I asked as I put the dishes down inside. “Where’s … oh, crap!” I’d left a hunk of barbeque covered to cool on the center island. It had vanished.
I turned around, and Patsy lay snoring on the wide plank floor, a sheen of grease
on her lips, which were slightly parted in a wolfish grin. She had somehow slipped inside, stood up, and picked the meat off the tray without a sound—without us, sitting outside only ten feet away, suspecting anything. I couldn’t believe it. She’d beaten me again.
“Dammit, I slaved over that roast! I kept my eye on her all day—how many times do I have to watch her?” I complained.
“Apparently … one more than you did,” Betty Huckleston said.
I glared at her for a long second, and then we both exploded in laughter, loud enough to wake Patsy Cline out of her pork-filled dreams with a start.
CHAPTER TWO